SOUTH KOREA – North Korea on Sunday dismissed Seoul’s offer of dialogue as a “cunning gimmick,” darkening hopes for defused tension and normalizing the suspended joint industrial park anytime soon. President Park Geun-hye proposed talks with Pyongyang on Thursday to resolve the dispute over the Gaeseong industrial complex sparked by the North’s ban on South Koreans’ entry and withdrawal of its workers. The North’s propaganda agency responded that the overture was an “empty shell” intended “to conceal (South Korea’s) confrontational identity. “It is too brazen for those who have been engrossed in nuclear war games and fratricidal confrontation plots to mention dialogue without saying a word about apologies or their responsibilities,” Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The agency demanded the South give up its “hostile attitude” if it wants talks. “Whether the dialogue is realized depends on the attitude of the South Korean government,” it added. The Unification Ministry said it was too early to interpret the North’s response as a final refusal. “The report is an initial response to our offer so that we should watch the situation for some time,” the ministry said in a message to reporters. After weeks of tit-for-tat shows of force and verbal threats, hopes were growing for a diplomatic solution as Seoul and Washington offered peace overtures late last week and Beijing also promised efforts to help persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons. Since last Thursday, North Korea has also stopped moving around its transporter-erector-launchers for short- and mid-range missiles believed to be technically ready for test-firing, Seoul officials said. The mobile launchers were seen repeatedly changing locations on the east coast last week in an apparent attempt to interfere with intelligence monitoring by South Korea and the U.S. “The vehicles carrying Musudan, Rodong and Scud missiles have not moved and been standing in the same place since two days ago,” an unnamed government official was quoted as saying on Saturday by Yonhap News. “There are no signs of an imminent missile launch.” The North’s warlike rhetoric is also letting up after churning out threats of a nuclear strike on and a “sacred war” with South Korea and the U.S. –The Korean Herald